


The Aftertaste of You

by fatigued_fan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Blow Jobs, Dean Winchester Has Internalized Homophobia, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean Winchester Has a Sexuality Crisis, Dean Winchester's First Time With a Man, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, First Time, First Time Bottoming, Ghosts, Homophobic John Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, John Winchester Being an Asshole, John Winchester's Journal, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Discovery, Self-Hatred, Skippable Smut, Smut, based off of John's journal entries, blowjob, i wrote this listening to a fucked up playlist, john is sadistic, like so so much, religious trauma, so much unhappiness, the worst 17th birthday ever, two dead gay nuns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatigued_fan/pseuds/fatigued_fan
Summary: Dean Winchester knew what monsters were: snarling angry beasts hunting humans in the night. They were vicious but predictable, less than human.What he never expected was that monsters could be human too.Caught between the monster growing stronger inside of him with every passing day and the monster that calls itself father, Dean's struggle for survival takes on a deadly nightlife during his first solo hunt.
Relationships: Lee Webb/Dean Winchester





	The Aftertaste of You

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of the entry in John Winchester's journal detailing Den's first solo hunt at 17.

Dean Winchester was four years old when the first monster came into his life, a yellow eyed man poisoning his brother and incinerating his saintly mother. 

He remembered it all of course, the fire that is: the white hot heat of the flames as they burned through the tinder of his suburban paradise, the hollow screams of his mother as the blood wrenched through her body and the flames consumed what lifeless husk remained, how his father shouted and shoved a squirming bundle into his arms and told him to run. Sammy's terrified cries had pierced his ears, consumed his thoughts as he watched what he knew turn to ash. The firefighters had been nice, of course, had given him a blanket and a teddy bear as they tried to console him. 

Dean didn't know what had happened then, why his father was crying and why they had to pile into the impala that had once felt so warm but now lacked any trace of humanity. All he knew was that his mother wouldn't be coming with them, not now and not ever. 

Dean Winchester was seven years old when the second monster came into his life.

It had been a simple request from John, just go to the convenience store around the corner and pick up a few things while he was out to meet with a few work buddies. Not too long though, Sammy couldn't be left alone for more than 10 minutes or so daddy had said. Dean knew he could do it, he was John Winchester’s son after all and tough as nails. She had been nice, the woman working the cash register, and slid two small chocolate bars into the bag so Dean could enjoy them later. Thinking nothing of it, he accepted and began his momentous trek back to the motel they were staying at. 

The man he bumped into on the street was the first sign of trouble. He was tall and impossibly thin, long knobby limbs covered with a thin swath of skin that stretched far tighter than Dean thought was possible. Aside from the height and the way in which the man seemed to draw in the light around him, there was something wrong with his eyes. They were too bright, the pupils a sickly yellow green and the irises deeper than the pits of despair Dean felt trapped in when he closed his eyes to sleep. 

“You look troubled, little one. Are you lost?” He purred. Shivers ran down Dean’s spine at the voice, at how low and  _ wrong  _ it seemed. Human voices weren’t supposed to echo like that, they weren’t supposed to pierce deep into your bones and lodge there like a shard of glass from a broken window.

Blinking slowly at the man, Dean clued in to a few other attributes that turned his blood to ice in his veins. The man’s mouth, a thin pressed line set into the hollows of his gaunt face, had spread to a wide set smile with whiter than white teeth. Sharpened canines gave way to the sharpened points of a second set of teeth and Dean’s eyes widened in horror. Humans weren’t supposed to have that many sharp teeth, were they?

“No, I'm not lost.”

“One so young really shouldn't be wandering off so far from home by himself. What if one were to find himself all alone with a stranger who would mean him harm?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly and he leaned back on his heels, getting ready to run if the man made so much as a flinch in his direction. John had warned him of people like this, of people who would try to lure him in and use him for God knew what. Was he one of those Christians or those other religions who wanted to convert him or was the man something else, something less than human that Dean had heard John whispering about late at night.

Try as he might, Dean felt the inklings of mistrust begin to fade away the longer he stared into the impossible eyes of the man. Gone was the suspicion and the uncertainty towards the man and replacing them was something akin to trust and romanticism. He knew this man, felt like he had known this man all his life, and all he wanted to do was take his hand and walk away with him. 

“Dean, what do you think you’re doing?” John asked, his brusque voice cutting through the air and right through the aura the strange man was projecting. Grabbing Dean’s hand, John yanked him away from the man and down the road. “I told you not to talk to strangers and I told you not to take more time getting the groceries. What the hell do you think you were doing?”

“I just- he was… I don’t know…” Dean mumbled as he watched the cracks in the pavement pass under his feet. As the fuzziness began to fade, a sense of dread began to take root and soon enough Dean’s heart was hammering away inside his chest. “He just- his eyes didn’t look normal, dad. Why weren’t they normal?”

“What do you mean his eyes didn’t look normal?” John asked as he opened the door to their motel room and shoved Dean inside. There were no niceties from John, no hugs and soft murmurs of reassurance, just cold hard looks and harsh jerking movements. 

“They were just wrong. There was just this yellow green colour and I wanted to go with him when he talked to me. He shouldn't have been that tall dad, shouldn’t have had teeth that sharp.” Dean mumbled quietly, making his way to the bed he had claimed as his safe space. 

“You said he had yellow green eyes? What did he sound like?” John asked suddenly, reaching for his journal to rifle through it. The intensity in his eyes and the fervor in his voice spoke of some far reaching hatred, a feeling so intense that it chilled Dean even now.

“His eyes were yellow green and his voice, it was kind of rough but I just wanted to listen to it and do whatever he wanted me to do.” Dean mumbled, peering over the pillow as he watched John's hasty scribbles in his journal. “Why is that important?”

The narrowed eyes were enough to shut Dean up and he said nothing as he made room for John when he clomped his way over, sitting on the bed beside Dean. “It’s time that you and I have a grownup chat. You’re seven, far too old to play make believe and act as if there isn’t a care in the world. What you need is a stern talking to, someone to rip the veil of innocence away and expose what lies beneath.”

“What do you mean what lies beneath?” Dean asked, wide childlike eyes glancing up at John with trepidation and fear. 

“Monsters, Dean, that’s what I mean.”

“Monsters? Like Frankenstein and Dracula?”

“No Dean, not like that. Monsters are real, the kind that hide in the dark and prey on humans. It was a monster like that that hurt your mom and killed her, started the fire that did it.” John explained. “Monsters have always been around, they’ve been on earth longer than most humans and they’ve adapted to life hunting us.”

“So when I said that there were monsters under my bed and in my closet, were they actually there?” Dean asked, his eyes widening as the tears began to show. “Was that man I saw today a monster? What monster killed momma?”

“There were never monsters in your closet or under your bed, your mother and I always checked first.” John sighed. “The man you saw today was a monster, there is no doubt about that. I do think that the man you saw was in fact the creature that killed your mother.”

“B-but she died in a fire?” Dean stammered, the sheen of his eyes beginning to fill with tears. Heart racing and pounding, Dean curled in on himself and held his head in his hands. His tiny little cracked world was beginning to fracture, shards slipping away and impaling the heart far too big for his tiny little body. 

“She never died in the fire, Dean. She was dead before that, her organs collapsed and her blood fell onto the carpet. She died screaming, Dean, died watching that sick son of a bitch laugh at her.” John spat, voice dripping with hatred and malice. His eyes were dark, darker than Dean had ever seen them, and staring into them as he felt his father yank him back to a sitting position was enough to traumatize him. It wasn’t the eyes that scared him or the forceful way in which John was speaking but instead the quiet intensity behind his eyes. It was the intensity that spoke of nights of drinking and swearing, of bar brawls and long drives deep into places the recesses of humanity only dreamed of treading. This intensity burned a whole into Dean, exposed everything he was afraid to say and think. 

“Will the monsters get me and Sammy?” Dean asked quietly, eyes trained on the stubble of John’s moustache and not into the two blackholes boring into his face. 

“No Dean, they won’t. I’ll teach you how to protect Sammy.”

“Okay, daddy.”

~

“Alright Dean, here's what you need to know about the basic monsters and ghouls that come out to hunt us.” John began, gesturing to the array of items spread out around him and Dean. Hardly knowing what each thing was, Dean leaned forward to get a better look. Gleaming wickedly in the light Dean saw what he assumed to be a knife of some kind, a long blade sharpened to perfection. Laying next to the knife were several guns, their barrels shining and polished.

Dean frowned and closed his jacket, buttoning it deftly. The cool Minnesota air whipped past his face and tears stung his eyes, his hands shoved deep into his pockets where he fiddled with a wad of leftover tissues. This was supposed to be a time they shared doing some much needed bonding while Sam slept in the background but this was something else entirely, this was some perverted ritual meant to confuse him and teach him the unfairness of life. 

“Monsters are going to be everywhere and not every monster has the same weaknesses. Vampires must be beheaded and werewolves stabbed with silver while demons must be exorcised.” John explained, taking the blade and setting it in Dean’s hands. He paused and then began to guide Dean through the motions of the swings. Heavy in his hand, the blade practically dragged Dean to the ground so it came as no surprise when Dean finally collapsed under the immense weight and pressure of both the machete and John. 

All Dean wanted was to grab the baseball and glove in the backseat and play catch with John, to have a single moment where he felt like a normal child where his dad was loving and doting and his mother was off somewhere getting groceries or gossiping with all the other moms of the neighborhood. But that wasn’t realty and Dean knew that would never be reality, not unless some faceless God came down and granted the wish of a traumatized child. 

But God wasn’t real and this wasn’t some fantasy where an angel would descend from the heavens to save the boys from their back road haunt of a life. 

This was real life and God was dead, their mother was dead. Light was fading away, replaced with the darkness and the inky black tentacles of trauma and monsters. Around each corner was something waiting to eat them or kill them and John’s paranoia was beginning to affect Dean in every aspect of his life. Like a rose infested with mites, Dean wasn’t all that he seemed. Pretty and pink on the outside, soft smiles and bright green eyes disarmed others but underneath the surface Dean was beginning to rot and corrupt. Gone was his innocence and replacing it was something roiling and ugly, a worm burrowing itself deep within him. 

“Dean, pay attention to me! This is important!” John barked, grabbing Dean’s arm roughly and yanking him away from the fleeting fantasies. “You never know when Sam is going to need you to protect him or when a monster is going to appear and attack you. Your mother wasn’t prepared and it cost her her life, you don’t want to be like that do you?”

“No dad.” Dean mumbled, shuffling his feet as he reached for the next weapon Dean had laid down in front of him. 

“It’s not ‘dad’, Dean. It’s sir. Get it right next time.”

“Yes sir.”

~

Dean was ten years old when he met his third set of monsters and it was in a small backwater town in rural Iowa when he realized that monsters could be humans too. Lugging a large duffel bag into the lobby of the crane motel, Dean was met with a sight he hadn’t expected. 

Two men stood at the check-in counter, their bags on either side of them as the taller of the two men talked with the clerk to arrange accommodations for the night, The taller man had long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, the back of his jeans and his jean jacket scuffed and faded from age. Beside him was a smaller man dressed in what looked like a Hawaiian shirt, tight fitting jeans sucking everything in and shaping the man. What caught Dean’s attention the most wasn’t their outfits or the way the taller man seemed to talk but instead a singular action so inconsequential that it shouldn’t have mattered.

The hand of the taller man was resting firmly within the back pocket of the smaller man’s jeans. 

Dean had never seen something like that before, never seen a man so brazenly shoving his hand into another man’s back pocket. Was the other man grabbing his ass? Was it just friendly? Dean didn’t know what it was but he knew what it stirred up inside of him. It was an odd sort of feeling, a squeezing in his chest and a fluttering in his stomach as if he had swallowed a thousand live butterflies. He watched with wide eyes, attention solely focused on the two men as one pressed a chaste kiss onto the others’ lips. Before Dean even registered how his heart was fluttering and the feeling growing stronger in his stomach, he felt John's rough hand grabbing his jacket and pulling him down the hall. 

“Dad, what the hell?” He muttered, tripping over the raised tile of their hotel room and tumbling to the floor. “You didn’t need to grab me like that!”

“Don’t raise your voice with me, boy!” John yelled back, tossing his duffel onto the carpeting before closing the door and shaking his head. “You know damn well why I pulled you in here and away from those fucking homos.”

“What do you mean they were homos? What are homos?” Dean asked, realizing only too late that his curiosity would only make the situation worse. He should've kept his mouth shut, Dean knew that, but seeing that chaste kiss only made Dean more curious about it was like when men kissed. 

John’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and he paused, sitting down beside Dean on the bed in such a way that Dean had to force himself not to shrink away from him. “Well Dean, homos are those two men out there. Homos are men who fuck other men and women who fuck other women. They’re all fucking disgusting, all of them are going to hell, and they deserve it for flaunting that shit for the world to see. You keep that shit buried inside, don’t let no one see it outside the bedroom. Even then it’s disgusting. No man who lets another man fuck him in the ass is actually a man.”

Dean was quiet as John spoke, his eyes cast down to the seafoam green of the comforter. There hadn’t seemed to be anything wrong with those two men, not before they were kissing and not after either. Surely it wasn’t that weird to be attracted to other men? There was no way that the butterflies in his stomach and the fluttering of his heart at seeing the men made him wrong, was there?

“So liking men is weird and unnatural then?” Dean asked quietly, fiddling with his thumbs. 

“That’s exactly what it is. I’d love to just find them and beat their asses but I’d rather not put up with potential jail time and the fines. I want you to stay away from them, Dean. They’re sick and you don't need to be infected with whatever they have.”

“What if- what if Sam or I was into men? Not that I am and not that Sam is… but what if we were?”

There was almost time in between Dean asking the question and the sudden rough feeling of John grabbing Dean’s jaw and yanking the boy forward to look at him. His eyes glittered with the same intensity as when he spoke of the yellow eyed demon that had killed his mother, a deep blackness swallowing all of the light in the room. Dean could feel John’s fingers digging into his sensitive skin and he knew that there would be bruises when he pulled away. It terrified him, the ease in which John was so able to flip a switch and lash out at him. The last thing Dean wanted to do was teeter off of the edge of the incredibly thin tightrope he was walking. 

“It’s simple, Dean. I would know if one of my sons ever turned out to be a homo and if they did, well- I think I would beat them. They should know better than to ever be that feminine and sickening, that perverted and irresponsible with their bodies and their souls. It wouldn’t just be a simple slap though, that would never teach them the lesson they needed to know. What would happen to them may be described as cruel but necessary. All it is is a simple reminder that they know right from wrong.”

Dean closed his eyes as he listened to John, the half digested burger in his stomach only making him feel sick. Those men had done nothing wrong, they just loved who they loved… but John would never see that way, nothing would ever change his mind about the way the world should work and who should be saved and left for dead. It wasn't Dean’s fault that he was curious, that he wanted to know about how the world worked and why some people were just different. It certainly wasn’t his fault that the boy at school who had shared his snack had made his heart flutter and his stomach all nauseous and bubbly. 

“Now enough with the questions, Dean, just go to bed.” John said gruffly, letting go of Dean’s chin and leaving the bed in search of a beer from the fridge in their room. Dean said nothing and kicked off his boots before crawling under the comforter, clutching it tightly in his hands to seek some form of comfort from the tension in the room. The comforter did little to still his racing thoughts and as Dean finally drifted off to sleep, three simple things plagued him.

He had met his first monster at four years old, a man who had stolen his mother and his perfect life away from under him.

He had met his first monster at seven years old, a tall thin man with yellow eyes who captured his mind and swayed his thoughts. 

He had met his third monster at ten years old, a couple of men bound together by feelings out of their control and a man he had thought loved him and others.

But there were more than just three monsters in the world and he was learning slowly that sometimes the monsters were just as human as everyone else.


End file.
